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We were the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA); and were dedicated to ending sexual violence in Jewish communities globally. We did our best to operate as the make a wish foundation for Jewish survivors of sex crimes. In the past we offered a clearinghouse of information, resources, support and advocacy.

An undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, 2013, both agents called Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.

Rabbi Mendel Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.

Yeshiva Shaarei Torah is located in the beautiful rural setting of Suffern,New York and is comprised of three divisions: Mesivta/ High School, Bais Medrash and Kollel. The Yeshiva's five acre campus is home to a fully equipped educational building and student residence hall. This pristine environment affords the Talmidim the opportunity to immerse themselves in their studies in an atmosphere conducive to learning and personal growth.The goal of the Yeshiva is to provide a superior Torah education while inculcating the Talmidim with Midos Tovos and a sense of commitment to the Klall. The Yeshiva is known for its warm atmosphere and caring Hanhala who do their utmost to ensure the success of the Talmidim.

_______________________________________________________________________________What Kind of Community Needs to Hear ThisRabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis MedrashBy Rabbi Eliyahu FinkJewish Press - August 28, 2013

Rabbi Mendel Epstein

An interview with Rabbi Mendel Epstein has gone viral. The protagonist of the article is Rabbi Epstein, a man who has dedicated his life to helping women navigate the rough waters of Jewish divorce. He is a professional to’ein (Jewish for lawyer) and advocates for women. He has a lot of insight. He also carries a bias. We all do. There’s no crime in bias. But it’s important that we know what we are dealing with. In terms of substance, I agree with a lot of what Rabbi Epstein says. Obviously. Who wouldn’t? He comes off a bit paternalistic at times. He’s also working in a very male dominated social environment so some of what he says sounds uncomfortable to more modern ears. I think it’s clear that he is talking about a fairly insular Haredi community. Most of the modern orthodox or even centrist yeshiva type people I know are fully aware of these things and don’t need to be informed or even reminded to treat their wives respectfully. Four items in his “Bill of Rights” for Orthodox Jewish wive are:

(1) A wife must be treated with respect and not be abused. A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get. (2) She is entitled to be supported by her husband. Read the kesubah. (3) A husband is obligated to honor and respect his wife’s parents. (4) She is entitled to a normal conjugal relationship.

He also cites some very specious anecdotal evidence about divorce and infidelity that sound exaggerated. He basically tries to assert the “it might lead to mixed dancing” argument as fact. But here is the real problem. What kind of society needs to be told these things? How is this all not patently obvious? What kind of world needs a rabbi to affirm these basic principles? It’s not as if Rabbi Epstein is saying that there a few people who need to be reminded or scolded about these things. He seems to be saying that this Bill of Rights is necessary for our entire society. This makes me ill. We tout our communities as safe havens from the dysfunction on the outside. But is it true? Is there dysfunction on the outside? Are we functioning better? These are very difficult claims to answer. Rabbi Epstein seems to be poking a hole in our armor. It seems that in some ways we need to look to the outside as our guide on how to behave. Ask any middle-class, educated, family orientated person about marriage and there is no doubt that they will echo Rabbi Epstein’s supposed bombshell. But how does this happen? How is it that we are falling behind? It’s possible that we have demonized the outside so much in our communities and educational systems that we passively reject whatever they espouse. We gloss over חכמה בגויים תאמין. We think that we have the answers and they don’t. Eventually this leads us to a place where we tune out the good ideas and advice from the outside and bad habits and poor social standards become set in our communities. I don’t doubt that there are many people who need to hear this Bill of Rights. But I also don’t doubt that anyone normal would agree with them. So why does it need to be said? It has to be that we simply ignore these issues. Why are we ignoring them if the rest of modern society is addressing them? There is no satisfactory answer to this question. One more thing. Rabbi Epstein places too much faith in the Beis Din system. I have never in my entire life heard of someone who had a positive Beis Din experience. It seems extremely unlikely that a woman’s best course of action is to go to a Beis Din that requires both parties to agree to a binding arbitration. The problems with our Beis Din system are well known and it’s a disservice to his audience that Rabbi Esptein recommends entering into this basically corrupt system. See: Restoring Credibility to the Beis Din System.

The article ends with a call for action and ideas for solutions. I think it’s pretty simple. Reinstitute חכמה בגויים תאמין. Start learning from the outside. Read secular books of marriage and intimacy. Pay attention to what psychologist, marriage therapists, and secular experts say. Rabbis have to stop dismissing everything that comes from outside the Beis Medrash. We can learn a lot from experts on these matters, especially intimacy. We have to start respecting people outside our community and not believing as a matter of faith that a yarmulka and a sheitel and a vort and a 500 guest wedding and sheva brachos and shana rishona are going to magically make for great marriages and happy couples. There are many very happy marriages within our community. There are also many happy marriages outside our community. We can learn from them. We should learn from them. Hopefully we can arrive at a place where we can laugh at the absolute silliness of a Bill of Rights that says not to abuse women, to provide for one’s family, and to be intimate with one’s wife. I hope we get there soon.

FBI: Kidnaping, Cattle Prods Used to Force Orthodox Jewish Men To Divorce Wives

2 Rabbis Among 4 Charged in FBI Sting

CBS News New York - October 10 2013

NEW YORK (CBS New York) – Two rabbis and two other men allegedly used kidnapping and cattle prods, among other methods, to force Orthodox Jewish men into divorcing their wives, authorities said.

Rabbis Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark as well as Ariel Potash and Fnu Lnu were arrested after the FBI raided several locations overnight, including Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Suffern, a home in Brooklyn and at least one other location in New Jersey.

Potash and Lnu are accused of being “tough guys” who kidnapped and beat up the husbands of distraught wives seeking a divorce. Epstein and Wolmark allegedly approved and arranged the beatings, according to the criminal complaint.

According to Jewish law, in order to get a divorce a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a “get,” the complaint said.

Only a husband can initiate divorce by issuing the “get,” but a wife has the right to sue for divorce in rabbinical court, court papers said.

Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark

According to the criminal complaint, an undercover FBI agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife who was seeking a divorce from her unwilling husband. A second undercover agent posed as her brother.

In August, the undercover agents called Wolmark saying they were “desperate for a religious divorce and were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain a divorce,” the complaint said.

“There are a couple of ways to do that,” Wolmark allegedly said in a recorded phone conversation. “You have to, we have to, convene a special beth din and see if there are grounds to, to, to coerce him on the ‘get.’”

Wolmark said the process “could be very costly” and requires “special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through the end,” the complaint said.

“In other words, you need to get him to New York where someone either can harass him or nail him. Plain and simple,” he said, according to the complaint.

Wolmark then linked up the undercovers with Epstein, who met him at his house in New Jersey about a week later — a meeting that was recorded, the papers said.

During the meeting, Epstein talked about “kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands in order to force a divorce,” court papers said.

“Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the ‘get,’” Epstein allegedly said.

He said they would use “tough guys” who utilize “electric cattle prods, karate, handcuffs and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands,” the complaint said.

According to the complaint, Epstein said if a cattle prod “can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know.”

Epstein said he commits a kidnapping every year to year and half, authorities said.

He said it would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the “tough guys,” authorities said.

Epstein told the undercovers that Wolmark officiates during the kidnapping and that his son was one of the so-called “tough guys” who “uses his karate skills” on the victims, court papers said.

They allegedly arranged to meet in Rockland County in October to begin the process of authorizing the use of violence to obtain a forced “get.”

In subsequent phone conversations, the undercover agent posting as the brother suggested he could lure the female undercover’s husband to New Jersey, the complaint said.

Epstein eventually proposed that the husband be brought to a warehouse in Middlesex County, where Lnu and Epstein were later seen by FBI surveillance teams scoping out the location, prosecutors said.

On Oct. 2, the undercover female agent met with Wolmark, Epstein, Potash and Lnu to get approval for the use of force, authorities said.

Potash said that he “does whatever the rabbis tell him” while Lnu wrote everything down, court papers said.

After the meeting, Epstein confirmed the plan and authorized the use of force to obtain the “get” and $20,000 was wire transferred by one of the undercover agents to Epstein, authorities said.

Ten more people have been taken into custody in connection with case, 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg reported.

SUFFERN (WABC) -- Three rabbis, including one who claims to have conducted more than 2,000 divorces, were arrested for allegedly pressuring Orthodox Jewish men into giving their wives religious divorces.

Rabbi Mendel Epstein, Rabbi Martin Wolmark, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein and a fourth man, Ariel Potash, are facing charges. As many as six others people are also in custody but may not be charged.

The investigation revealed that unhappy Orthodox Jewish wives who wanted a divorce were paying $100,000 to the rabbis. In exchange, the rabbis would facilitate divorce, frequently by hiring armed thugs kidnap the husbands and beat them until they agreed.

The investigation also revealed the activity had been going on for 20 years or more.

One of the rabbis, Mendel Epstein, claims to have been involved in more than 2,000 divorces and has advocated for a group called "A Jewish Wife's Rights."

"Mendel Epstein talked about forcing compliance through the use of 'tough guys' who utilize electric cattle prods, karate, handcuffs and place plastic bags of the heads of husbands," FBI Special Agent Bruce Kamerman said.

To divorce in the Orthodox community, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a "get." A woman whose husband will not consent is known as an agunah.

FBI agents raided the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Suffern at around 9 p.m. Wednesday. They loaded equipment into several unmarked cars and left after midnight.

Students were forced to wait in the yeshiva's parking lot during the raid.

Meanwhile, FBI agents were also at Rabbi Epstein's house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, executing a search.

The suspects allegedly hired by the rabbis were based in Middlesex County.

MONSEY — The FBI descended late Wednesday on Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in connection with an investigation into a gang that pressured men into giving their wives religious divorces, a law enforcement source told The Journal News.

The FBI told Ramapo police to follow them to the yeshiva at 89 Carlton Road about 9 p.m. Authorities remained at the scene until early Thursday morning, when several agents were seen leaving the building, loading equipment into several unmarked cars with New Jersey license plates.

The source said arrests were made in Rockland as well as New Jersey.

An FBI spokesman in the New York City office said actions in connection to the investigation were also ongoing in Brooklyn.

The spokesman would only say that searches were being conducted in connection with an “ongoing investigation.” He could not confirm whether arrests had been made and referred all calls to the agency’s Newark, N.J. office. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

Agents could be seen inside the school's lobby area and at various points outside the building. Students outside the yeshiva said the school is for High School children. Several said they were inside the building when the raid began, but were forced to remain in the parking lot during the bulk of the law enforcement action.

Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe on Wednesday said he was aware of the raid, but referred all questions to the FBI. Ramapo police also would not field questions concerning the matter

MONSEY - The FBI raided a Yeshiva in Rockland County last night in what is being described as a "pay for divorce" kidnapping sting.

Law enforcement officials could be seen outside and inside the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey around 9 p.m. yesterday.

An FBI spokesman says they have charged four people with unlawfully seizing, confirming, kidnapping, abducting, holding a person for ransom reward and otherwise threatening them or conversing with them to get a divorce. The FBI criminal complaint says Martin Wolmark, Mendel Epsteinand Ariel Potak, and Fnu Lnu aka "Yaakov" used violence to obtain a forced divorce. The suspects are scheduled to appear in Trenton, NJ federal court at 2 p.m. today.

Arrests have been made in New Jersey and New York after the FBI raided a temple in Rockland County, according to two published reports.

A group reportedly pressured men into granting their wives religious divorces,LoHud.com reported.

FBI agents were spotted moving equipment into unmarked vehicles with New Jersey license plates outside Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in the Monsey section of Ramapo, N.Y. the report said. The temple is about three miles from the New Jersey border.

Man at heart of FBI sting operation is well known in the torrid world of non-amicable Orthodox divorce.

Nearly any Orthodox woman who has struggled with the process of obtaining a halachic divorce from an uncooperative or vindictive husband in the New York area has heard the name Mendel Epstein.

The 68-year old rabbi, who appears to have homes in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Lakewood, N.J., has been closely involved in the world of agunot, or “chained women,” for some three decades, serving as a toen, the halachic equivalent of a lawyer.

In an interview with the Five Towns Jewish Times last summer, Rabbi Epstein said he was “disturbed by the number of women who find themselves in unbearably difficult situations” in divorce proceedings. He proposed a “bill of rights” for Jewish wives that includes, “A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get.”

But according to the FBI, which rounded up Rabbi Epstein and nine other men in an alleged interstate abduction ring last week and raided several homes and a Monsey yeshiva, his methods of persuading husbands to come around ran afoul of the law, if not halacha, and could land him and his associates in federal prison.

“I always knew he is a vigilante operating in system similar to the Wild West,” said Rivka Haut, a longtime activist on behalf of agunot who has known the rabbi for years, but said she had no direct knowledge of any abductions.

However, she said that women in such situations frequently asked her advice about pursuing such extreme measures. Haut, a co-founder of the advocacy group Agunah, Inc., says she has always counseled people to steer clear of violence or illegal schemes.

“Most of these women had to leave the marriage not because they want to go live with someone else, but because they married someone with serious problems,” Haut said. “Usually, they are desperate to be halachically released.”

According to the FBI, there are plenty of area women desperate enough to go through with illegal means. The complaint by New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, which was obtained by The Jewish Week, says Rabbi Epstein boasted to undercover agents that he carried out batei din, or rabbinical courts, to authorize the use of force, followed by abductions and coerced divorces on a regular basis “every year … year and a half” for an unspecified time period.

Fishman told The New York Times that two dozen husbands in divorce cases have been identified who may have been abducted from New York and taken to New Jersey to be roughed up by the defendants.

A message left at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home was not returned as of Tuesday afternoon. A number listed for Mendel Epstein in Lakewood appeared to be connected to a fax machine. Attempts to identify a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.

The Asbury Park Press, citing an unnamed source, reported on Oct. 11 that the investigation was directly related to a similar ongoing case involving an Orthodox couple from Lakewood, David and Judy Wax, who were charged in 2011 with abducting an Israeli man to force him to grant a get. That case is still pending. More arrests related to both cases will be forthcoming, the source told Asbury Park Press.

The FBI investigation originated in August and spanned until Oct. 7, when agents, including two posing as an agunah and her brother apprehended the defendants in a warehouse in Middlesex County, N.J. The fake scheme involved luring a supposed husband from New York City.

The complaint alleges that Rabbi Epstein solicited $10,000 for the rabbis presiding in the bet din and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 for “tough guys” to carry out the abduction and coercion. The complaint does not specify whether Rabbi Epstein himself was to receive any of the fees.

It doesn’t take more than an Internet search to link Rabbi Epstein to controversy. One man, Givon Zirkind, has launched an online crusade against the rabbi, posting an e-book and several YouTube videos that accuse him of various misdeeds against him. The rabbi’s name comes up on several blogs devoted to Orthodox wrongdoing, abuse and corruption.

The rabbi himself speaks candidly about his unorthodox methods in an interview in “Women Unchained,” a 2011 documentary by filmmakers Beverly Siegel and Leta Letik.

“I received a call from a young lady; she called and told me her son was kidnapped off a bus in Texas,” Rabbi Epstein says in a clip from “Women Unchained” posted by the Journal News of Rockland.

“She had heard that I have an ability to do things that are outside the normal parameters and normal channels and if I can help her find her son and if I can help her get a get. … I told her to first call the FBI. If the FBI comes out [and says] that they can’t help, I would then be a little bit interested to see what I can possibly do.”

The Oct. 7 complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton quotes Rabbi Epstein saying that “basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get.” At one point he mentioned electric cattle prods being used, and at another said his son used karate to persuade the kidnapped men.

In addition to Rabbi Epstein, the other rabbis arrested were Rabbi Martin Wolmark and Rabbi Jacob Goldstein. Rabbi Wolmark is rosh yeshiva of Shaarei Torah, a prominent High School in upstate Suffern. On Wednesday night, following the arrests, federal agents in six cars conducted a search for evidence at the yeshiva, as well as at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home, according to press reports.

Another individual was identified as Ariel Potash, who is cited in the complaint as the man who served as a shaliach, or emissary, to accept the get on behalf of the agent pretending to be an agunah.

Rabbi Goldstein is not the same person as the politically active Crown Heights chasidic leader by the same name who is chairman of Brooklyn’s Community Board 9.

In all, 10 people were arrested in the scheme, apprehended at the warehouse in New Jersey as they gathered to carry out the fake kidnap plot. The case is a federal matter because it involves alleged kidnapping and crossing state lines. Denied bail, the defendants remained in custody as of Tuesday afternoon, though a bail hearing was set for that day.

Rabbi Epstein is known to have served as a toen, or advocate/adviser to people appearing before rabbinical courts for the past 30 years. It is unclear if he has any other livelihood, though haut said he at one point held a synagogue pulpit and was the principal of a girls’ yeshiva.

A business, Mendel Epstein and Associates is listed at his Brooklyn address with him as managing partner.

The arrests, which garnered national news coverage, cast a spotlight on the ugly world of non-amicable Orthodox divorces in which men are empowered to prevent women from moving on with their lives.

She said that while she and Aranoff deal extensively with the rabbi and his activities in their book, to be published by MacFarland Publishing, they had not named him in early drafts, but will do so now.

Numerous organizations have been formed to advocate for such women and New York law has been amended to allow judges to consider a couple’s get status when dividing marital assets. Also, several area rabbis have been known to act as intermediaries in such cases, sometimes asking for payment for their services.

Goon squads that force recalcitrant husbands to issue the divorce have been mostly the stuff of Jewish urban legend, though a few cases, such as the 2011 Wax case, have gone to the legal system.

Haut, an Orthodox activist who is working on an upcoming book, “The Agunah Chronicles,” with Susan Aranoff, with whom she cofounded Agunah, Inc., said she was “surprised to see the headlines” about the FBI sting but “not surprised to see the content.

“Everybody knew very well about his activities, which were not always on behalf of women, but sometimes on behalf of husbands. He plays many roles: dayan [judge], toen and vigilante.”

Haut said that when she and Aranoff started out as advocates for agunot, Rabbi Epstein approached them “in a very charming way” to teach them about a “fascinating, complicated world” and referred many women to their organization.

Haut faults leading rabbis who shape modern halacha for failing to come up with a takana, or solution, to empower women to free themselves from bad, sometimes dangerous marriages, though many such modifications have been proposed by rabbis and agunah advocates. Proposals include a pre-nuptial agreement to provide a get, and a process of ex post facto annulment of a marriage agreement, if needed.

“Today’s rabbinate is not willing to use halachic solutions that certainly exist, leaving the field wide open for other rabbis to take advantage,” said Haut.

While denouncing any illegal methods, Haut said, “I blame the established rabbis for leaving a vacuum where people like that can step in.”

In addition to the legal issues in the case, there is also the question of whether those who may have paid tens of thousands for the rabbi's alleged services got what they paid for.

While it has been a common practice to pressure husbands into granting a get through actions within the community -- such as issuing a seruv, a kind of excommunication from religious life, --physically forced gittin create, at the very least, a halachic gray area.

"A get, in limited circumstances, after a reputable beis din has decided it is proper to pressure the recalcitrant husband, is valid even if given under duress," said Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America. "Usually, though, in our society, such duress consists of “shunning” sorts of pressures: not allowing the man to receive an aliya, and things like that.

"Physical duress, if it violates secular law, would not, to the best of my knowledge, be permissible."_______________________________________________________________________________Rabbis accused of plot to torture man into granting divorceAssociated Press - October 10, 2013

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Two rabbis and two other men are accused in an FBI sting carried out in New Jersey and New York of plotting to kidnap and torture a man to force him to grant a religious divorce.

Rabbis Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark charged Jewish women and their families thousands of dollars to obtain religious divorces, known as "gets," from recalcitrant husbands, the FBI said in a complaint released Thursday.

Two undercover agents contacted Wolmark and Epstein in August about seeking a divorce. According to the complaint, Epstein spoke about forcing compliance through "tough guys" who use electric cattle prods and even place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.

The FBI said the price was more than $50,000.

The investigation took place in Ocean and Middlesex counties in New Jersey and Rockland County in New York. Several defendants were arrested overnight in raids in both states, including in Brooklyn, the FBI said. They were scheduled to appear in federal court in Trenton late Thursday.

The two other defendants are Ariel Potash and a person identified as Yaakov. Their hometowns were not provided in the complaint.

The undercover agents were a woman posing as a wife unable to get a divorce from her Orthodox Jewish husband, and her brother.

They met with Epstein at his Ocean County home in August, during which the rabbi spoke about "kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands in order to force a divorce," the complaint said.

"Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get," Epstein is quoted as saying during the conversation, which was videotaped.

Epstein is also quoted saying he wanted to use a cattle prod to torture the reluctant husband.

"If it can get a bull that weighs 5 tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute, the guy will know," he said, according to the complaint.

He also said that his group did a kidnapping every year to year and a half, and that the cost is $10,000 for a rabbinical court to approve the action and $50,000 to $60,000 for "tough guys" to carry it out.

The undercover agents wired him $20,000, the complaint said.

Under Jewish law, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a "get" to get a divorce. If a husband refuses to grant one, a wife has the right to sue in rabbinical court.

The court complaint said that a rabbinical court was held in Rockland County on Oct. 2 as part of the FBI sting, attended by all four defendants, during which the use of violence was authorized against the woman's husband.

When the woman asked Potash what his role was, he answered: "Whatever the rabbis tell me," the complaint said.

Rabbis Said to Use Torture, for Fee, to Force DivorceBy Joseph Goldstein Published: October 10, 2013

The two rabbis offered an unusual service to Jewish women who could not get their husbands to agree to a divorce, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For a fee, they would convene a rabbinical court and authorize the use of violence to get a recalcitrant husband to agree to a divorce, the F.B.I. said.

But that was not all, according to court papers unsealed Thursday morning. They were also willing to employ hired muscle, two men known as Ariel and Yaakov, to actually kidnap the man and torture him, until he pledged to divorce his wife, according a criminal complaint in Federal District Court in Newark.

Two men whom the authorities describe as rabbis – Martin Wolmark and Mendel Epstein – as well as a third man, Ariel Potash, have been charged in a kidnapping conspiracy according to court papers. In connection to the case, F.B.I. agents carried out raids in South Brooklyn and Monsey, N.Y., in Rockland County on Wednesday evening.

In some Orthodox Jewish communities, a divorce is granted only once a husband provides his wife with a document known as a get. And stories of the frustrations and obstacles that women face in their quest to obtain a get are commonplace. While a woman can sue in rabbinical court to try to secure a get, some husbands do not comply with the court’s edict.

That, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is where the rabbis came in. “You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end,” Rabbi Wolmark said in a recorded telephone conversation with an undercover F.B.I. agent posing as a woman whose husband would not grant her a get.

During the telephone conversation, on Aug. 7, Rabbi Wolmark referred the undercover agent to Rabbi Epstein, whom he described as “a hired hand” who could help. The fee was high, according to the court papers: $10,000 to pay the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 or more to actually carry out the kidnapping.

In a subsequent meeting at Rabbi Epstein’s home in Ocean County, New Jersey, Rabbi Epstein explained what he planned to do. “Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get,” according to a recorded conversation that is described in the criminal complaint. Rabbi Epstein, according to the court papers, mentioned that his “tough guys” utilized cattle prods and other torture techniques that were not likely to leave a mark.

Should the husband go to the police, Rabbi Epstein said, it was important that there were no obvious signs of injury. Without such physical evidence, Rabbi Epstein said, the police were unlikely to probe too deeply into the affairs of the Orthodox Jewish community, which can appear impenetrable to outsiders.

“Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don’t want to get involved,” Rabbi Epstein explained, according to the criminal complaint.

The court papers, which outline the undercover F.B.I. sting operation, do not describe instances in which the defendants actually carried out such kidnappings. But the authorities said that the evidence in the case includes a recorded conversation in which Rabbi Epstein “claimed that his organization kidnapped one recalcitrant husband approximately every year and a half.”

Many groups moved to area from eastern Europe, UkraineBy Peter KramerLoHud - October 10, 2013

The figures involved in Wednesday’s arrests are considered ultra-Orthodox followers of Judaism and are not Hasidic. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are a prominent community in Rockland, where they live alongside members of several Hasidic sects. New York is home to several sects:

Chabad Lubavitch: This worldwide movement, based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, focuses on educational outreach and inspiring Jews to perform mitvos as a way to establish a connection with God. The name Lubavitch refers to a town in Lithuania, where the movement was based during the 19th century. The Lubavitch moved to the U.S. from Russia in 1940, seeking to become a force in American Judaism.

Satmars: Originally from what is now Hungary, the Satmars are currently based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They believe that the state of Israel should not exist until it can be established by the messiah. The Satmars believe in strict separation from the outside culture and are perhaps the most isolated Hasidic sect. Satmars established the Kiryas Joel community in Orange County.

Bobover: Named after the Polish village in which the sect originated, the Bobovers were nearly exterminated during the Holocaust. After World War II, they moved to Crown Heights. But during the late 1960s, they resettled in Boro Park, Brooklyn. The late Grand Rabbi Schlomo Halberstam, who led the Bobover sect for more than 55 years, built his community to include more than 100,000 in Brooklyn, Miami, Montreal and several other cities.

Skver: A sect that started in Chernobyl and moved to Skver, Ukraine. The sect later moved to Brooklyn and then to Ramapo, where its name was Anglicized to become New Square. The current spiritual leader, Grand Rebbe David Twersky, is the sixth-generation leader of the Skvers.

Viznitz: A sect that originated in Viznitsia, Ukraine, a rural village in the Carpathian mountains. The sect fled to Brooklyn around World War II. Grand Rebbe Mordechai Hager led them in Kaser, a village in the middle of Monsey, until his 2012 death.

Two rabbis stand accused of running a “divorce-gang” that systematically used kidnapping and torture to coax legal consent from Jewish men reluctant to dissolve their marriages. The dubious service was offered to religious women as a way to bypass the orthodox provision whereby prospective divorcees must obtain their husband’s “get” — a signed document agreeing to the dissolution. For a fee, the gang would convene a rabbinical court and sanction the use of cattle prods, handcuffs, and karate.

A sweeping sting carried out Wednesday by the FBI led to the arrest of Rabbi Martin Wolmark of the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah and ultra-conservative divorce mediator Rabbi Mendel Epstein of Brooklyn, N.Y. Authorities also arrested two “thugs” identified in court documents as Ariel and Yaakov. The latter allegedly worked for the rabbis as hired muscle, and were responsible for some of the more convincing intimidation techniques.

The enforcement effort began in early August, when an undercover FBI agent and another agent posing as her brother contacted Rabbi Wolmark for his services. After the female agent told him she was would do anything to obtain her reluctant husband’s get, Rabbi Wolmark agreed to take their case and put them in touch with Rabbi Epstein, who would help them coordinate the kidnapping. As if to dispel any lingering doubts about the service’s legitimacy, Rabbi Epstein immediately began listing his “preferred methods,” which involved cattle prods and karate moves, USA Today reports.

"Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get," Rabbi Epstein told the undercover FBI agents. "You probably love your wife, but you'd give a get when they finish with you... Hopefully there wouldn't even be a mark on him."

"I guarantee that if you're in the van, you'd give a get to your wife," he added.

According to a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., the expensive service required women to pay $10,000 for the rabbinical court’s authorization and between $50,000 and $60,000 to hire men for the job. “Tough guys” like Ariel and Yaakov were allegedly told to keep scars and bruises to a minimum, as a dearth of physical evidence would deter authorities from probing the close-knit orthodox community, the New York Times reports.

“Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don’t want to get involved,” Rabbi Epstein explained, speaking to the undercover agents.

Rabbi Wolmark, Rabbi Epstein, and their hired thugs are expected to appear in court on Thursday.

Desperate wives paid Rabbi Mendel Epstein up to $100,000 to 'convince' their husbands to divorce them, according to sources and court papers.

Two rabbis plotted to kidnap Jewish husbands, torture them with electric cattle prods and force them to grant their desperate wives religious divorces, the feds charged Thursday.

Rabbi Mendel Epstein, 68, of Brooklyn and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, of Monsey, Rockland County, were among 10 people arrested in the barbarous scheme with tentacles that ran all the way to the rabbinical court.

Epstein is accused of running an unholy crew that charged women trapped in marital limbo $70,000 to $100,000 to strong-arm their stubborn husbands into granting a Jewish divorce known as a “get,” a criminal complaint reveals.

Wolmark, who presides over the rabbinical court in Monsey, is charged with accepting money to make sure the court approved the gets.

“They didn’t do it out of religious conviction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko told a judge Thursday in a federal court hearing in Trenton, N.J. “They did it for money.”

Epstein was secretly recorded touting the persuasive tactics of his “tough guys” — including a muscle man known only as “Yaakov.”

“Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get,” Epstein was videotaped saying.

“I guarantee that if you’re in the van, you’d give a get to your wife,” he went on, according to the criminal complaint. “We take an electric cattle prod . . . you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know.”

Epstein also said his gang “convinced” husbands to grant the get by putting plastic bags over their heads.

“We prefer not to leave a mark,” Epstein allegedly told the undercover agent. “Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here. They don’t want to get involved.”

One man told the Daily News on Thursday that he had first-hand knowledge of the torture Epstein’s henchmen are accused of doling out. “They forced it (the get) on me,” said the Brooklyn man, who would only give his name as Mr. Goldstein. “They busted my fingers, busted my ribs. They kept me handcuffed.”

In a bizarre case involving threats of kidnapping, beatings and physical torture — including the use of an electric cattle prod— two rabbis were charged in New Jersey on Wednesday in a scheme to force men to grant their wives religious divorces.

Two others were also charged in the case, which grew out of an undercover sting operation involving a female FBI agent who posed as a member of the Orthodox community seeking a divorce.

According to the FBI, most of those being charged today were arrested last night after a meeting at an undisclosed warehouse in Middlesex County, as the group gathered to launch the kidnapping plan. The rabbis were arrested at their homes. Many of the still unnamed defendants had been recruited as the muscle of the operation, sources said.

Attorney: Monsey rabbi tied to divorce gang could be released on bail by Friday

LoHud - October 16, 2013

A Monsey rabbi alleged to have been a mastermind behind a kidnap team that used torture as a means to persuade Orthodox Jewish men to grant their wives a religious divorce hopes to be out on bond by Friday, his attorney said.

Rabbi Martin “Mordachai” Wolmark, the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, appeared in federal court Wednesday alongside several men accused of having a role in the kidnappings.

Wolmark’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, of the Manhattan-based firm Brafman & Associates, said U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert agreed to his client’s release on condition that he surrender $5 million bond secured by property, remain under electronic home confinement and turn his passport over to authorities.

“We are pleased the court accepted Rabbi Wolmark’s bail package. That he was able to offer $5 million in equity shows that his family, friends and community support him. We look forward to defending these allegations with the Rabbi a free man,” Agnifilo said in an email. “We are posting the properties tomorrow and we hope he will be released by Friday.”

Agnifilo said two properties are being used to secure the bond. He declined to identify the properties or their owners.

Joining Wolmark in court Wednesday was Rabbi Mendel Epstein, another suspected mastermind and a prominent Ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator with homes in Brooklyn and New Jersey, and Ariel Potash, Binyamin Stimler, David Helman and Sholom Shuchat, four of the eight suspected gang members.

The six men sat shackled in the jury box, wearing green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. A U.S. marshal unlocked Epstein’s handcuffs, but not those of the others.

Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.

“Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips, we wouldn’t even be discussing a bond in this case,” he told Arpert. “There’s no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime.”

The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods — Jewish husbands reluctant to provide a religious divorce, or “get,” to their wives. The complaint claims the group kidnapped and tortured as many as 24 Orthodox Jewish men over the years.

Wolmark and his co-defendants had been held without bail since their arrest Oct. 9.

A clerk in Trenton’s federal court said the group is being held in a jail in Philadelphia but was unable to name the facility.

Epstein’s bail package was similar to Wolmark’s, the most notable difference being that four of his daughters and his wife are expected to put up five pieces of property valued at more than $4 million to secure his release. Agnifilo said the difference between the two bonds is reflective of Wolmark’s available assets rather than any indication of his culpability in the case.

Four other defendants, Jay Goldstein, Moshe Goldstein, Simcha Bulmash and Avrohom Goldstein, have yet to have bail hearings. If convicted, the defendants could all face up to life in prison.

Rabbis in divorce-gang sting could be out on bail soon USA Today - October 16, 2013Rabbis and others arrested last week are accused of using violence to coerce religious divorces.

TRENTON, N.J. — A rabbi who is charged in a kidnap-torture scheme that used cattle prods to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives divorces has been responsible for 20 or so kidnappings, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.

The remarks of Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko were made in federal court in Trenton, N.J., during a bail hearing for six of the 10 defendants who were charged in the plot.

Epstein — who will remain under home confinement at his house in Lakewood, N.J., once released — denies any wrongdoing, his Manhattan-based attorney, Susan Necheles, said in court.

"It's a matter for trial," she said.

But the case is growing, Gribko said during his appeal to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert to keep Epstein locked up.

"My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims," he said, mentioning the hotline for those calls, 800-CALL-FBI. "The threat to the public is ongoing as we speak."

Rejecting those comments, Arpert ruled that Epstein, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator in Brooklyn, N.Y., another rabbi, Martin "Mordachai" Wolmark, of Monsey, N.Y., and the four other men could be freed on bail that runs into millions of dollars for some defendants.

Wolmark's Manhattan-based attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said he expects Wolmark, who is the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, to be released Friday. There was no word from authorities or defense attorneys on whether any of the other men had worked out the conditions of their bail by Wednesday night.

Arpert ordered home confinement, electronic monitoring and other tight restrictions for all six defendants.

Epstein, 68; Wolmark, 55; Ariel Potash, a 40-year-old traveling salesman; Binyamin Stimler, 38, a psychotherapist and teacher who has a home in Lakewood but is listed as a Brooklyn resident; David Helman, 30, a personal trainer from Far Rockaway, N.Y.; and Sholom Shuchat, 28, the father of two small children — were being held at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center and were expected to be returned there Wednesday evening.

The yeshiva was raided by the FBI on Oct. 9. Wolmark was set to be released on a $5 million bond secured by two properties that have $2 million in equity. Agnifilo said the bail amount is tied to Wolmark's available assets and "does not reflect his culpability."

His conditions followed those of Epstein's, who is allowed out of his home for medical reasons, to visit his attorney and for religious worship, once during the day and for Shabbat on Friday evening.

Four daughters and Epstein's wife were scheduled to put up five pieces of property totaling more than $4 million in value to secure his release.

The six men sat shackled in the jury box wearing Army green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. Several people rose for the white-bearded Epstein as he was led into the courtroom. A U.S. marshal unlocked his handcuffs, but not those of the others.

Four other defendants — Jay Goldstein, 59, Moshe Goldstein, 30, Simcha Bulmash, 30, and Avrohom Goldstein, 33 — have yet to have bail set and were still being held at the detention center. All the men — including Epstein — are listed as having a hometown of Brooklyn, except for Wolmark, Helman and Bulmash. There was no hometown listed for Bulmash, a New York state resident.

"This man is all about his family," Necheles told Arpert, mentioning Epstein's eight children, more than 50 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. "If he were to flee, all of his children and grandchildren would be out on the street."

Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.

"Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips we wouldn't even be discussing a bond in this case," he said. "There's no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime."

The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods —Jewish husbands reluctant to provide religious divorces, or gets.

If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.

An undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, both agents called Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.

Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, the "tough guys" would use electric cattle prods, karate and handcuffs, and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.

"We take an electric cattle prod," Epstein said.

"Electric cattle prod, OK," the undercover agent replied.

"If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know," Epstein said, according to the complaint.

A law-enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said the arrests were the direct result of a 2011 case in which a Lakewood couple, David and Judy Wax, were accused of kidnapping an Israeli national in an attempt to force him to divorce his estranged wife in Israel. Proceedings in that case have been repeatedly postponed since the arrest.

A rabbi who is charged in a kidnap-torture scheme that used cattle prods to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives divorces has been responsible for 20 or so kidnappings, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.

The remarks of Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko were made in federal court in Trenton, N.J., during a bail hearing for six of the 10 defendants who were charged in the plot.

Epstein — who will remain under home confinement at his house in Lakewood, N.J., once released — denies any wrongdoing, his Manhattan-based attorney, Susan Necheles, said in court.

"It's a matter for trial," she said.

But the case is growing, Gribko said during his appeal to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert to keep Epstein locked up.

"My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims," he said, mentioning the hotline for those calls, 800-CALL-FBI. "The threat to the public is ongoing as we speak."

Rejecting those comments, Arpert ruled that Epstein, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator in Brooklyn, N.Y., another rabbi, Martin "Mordachai" Wolmark, of Monsey, N.Y., and the four other men could be freed on bail that runs into millions of dollars for some defendants.

Wolmark's Manhattan-based attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said he expects Wolmark, who is the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, to be released Friday. There was no word from authorities or defense attorneys on whether any of the other men had worked out the conditions of their bail by Wednesday night.

Arpert ordered home confinement, electronic monitoring and other tight restrictions for all six defendants.

Epstein, 68; Wolmark, 55; Ariel Potash, a 40-year-old traveling salesman; Binyamin Stimler, 38, a psychotherapist and teacher who has a home in Lakewood but is listed as a Brooklyn resident; David Helman, 30, a personal trainer from Far Rockaway, N.Y.; and Sholom Shuchat, 28, the father of two small children — were being held at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center and were expected to be returned there Wednesday evening.

The yeshiva was raided by the FBI on Oct. 9. Wolmark was set to be released on a $5 million bond secured by two properties that have $2 million in equity. Agnifilo said the bail amount is tied to Wolmark's available assets and "does not reflect his culpability."

His conditions followed those of Epstein's, who is allowed out of his home for medical reasons, to visit his attorney and for religious worship, once during the day and for Shabbat on Friday evening.

Four daughters and Epstein's wife were scheduled to put up five pieces of property totaling more than $4 million in value to secure his release.

he six men sat shackled in the jury box wearing Army green jumpsuits and black yarmulkes as more than 50 supporters and family members watched the proceedings. Several people rose for the white-bearded Epstein as he was led into the courtroom. A U.S. marshal unlocked his handcuffs, but not those of the others.

Four other defendants — Jay Goldstein, 59, Moshe Goldstein, 30, Simcha Bulmash, 30, and Avrohom Goldstein, 33 — have yet to have bail set and were still being held at the detention center. All the men — including Epstein — are listed as having a hometown of Brooklyn, except for Wolmark, Helman and Bulmash. There was no hometown listed for Bulmash, a New York state resident.

"This man is all about his family," Necheles told Arpert, mentioning Epstein's eight children, more than 50 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. "If he were to flee, all of his children and grandchildren would be out on the street."

Gribko said none of the men should be released regardless of their religious backgrounds.

"Had we been talking about the mob or the Bloods or the Crips we wouldn't even be discussing a bond in this case," he said. "There's no difference between them and these other gangs that engage in violent crime."

The men are accused of plotting to kidnap, beat and torture — with cattle prods —Jewish husbands reluctant to provide religious divorces, or gets.

If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.

An undercover FBI special agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife whose husband was unwilling to consent to divorce, while a second agent posed as the wife's brother, the complaint said. On Aug. 7, both agents called Wolmark to present their case and tell him they were willing to pay a large sum of money to obtain the divorce. Wolmark explained how he could coerce the divorce, but it would be expensive, the complaint said.

Epstein told them the kidnapping would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis on the rabbinical court to approve the kidnapping and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the "tough guys" who would conduct the beating and obtain the forced get, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, the "tough guys" would use electric cattle prods, karate and handcuffs, and place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.

"We take an electric cattle prod," Epstein said.

"Electric cattle prod, OK," the undercover agent replied.

"If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move ... you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know," Epstein said, according to the complaint.

A law-enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said the arrests were the direct result of a 2011 case in which a Lakewood couple, David and Judy Wax, were accused of kidnapping an Israeli national in an attempt to force him to divorce his estranged wife in Israel. Proceedings in that case have been repeatedly postponed since the arrest.

New York (CNN) -- A federal judge set bail Friday for four of 10 men facing kidnapping charges after allegedly arranging the violent assaults of Orthodox Jewish husbands, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Judge Douglas Arpert set bail at $1 million for Jay "Yaakov" Goldstein, while the other three -- Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein and Simcha Bulmash -- had bail set at $500,000, said Matthew Riley, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey.

Jay Goldstein's attorney, Aidan P. O'Connor, told CNN on Thursday he hoped his client would be able to leave jail and reunite with his family.

Goldstein, Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, along with seven other defendants, are accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars to orchestrate the kidnappings of Jewish husbands to persuade them to grant divorces to their wives, according to a criminal complaint.

Goldstein is a sofer, a Jewish scribe who transcribes the Torah and writes other religious documents, including divorce papers, according to his attorney.

On Wednesday, Arpert set bail between $500,000 and $1 million for the two rabbis, along with four other defendants: Ariel Potash, Binyamin Stimler, David Hellman and Sholom Shuchat.

Arpert also ordered home arrest -- with exceptions to leave for medical reasons, attorney meetings and religious purposes -- for all six, according to court documents.

Jay Goldstein, the rabbis and the other men were arrested after an FBI undercover investigation that led to a raid on October 9, according to the criminal complaint.

In one conversation with undercover FBI agents, the complaint alleges that Epstein talked about forcing the divorces with the help of hired "tough guys," who he said used plastic bags to cover the husbands' heads, and electric cattle prods and karate to assault them.

"I guarantee you that if you're in the van, you'd give a 'get' to your wife. You probably love your wife, but you'd give a 'get' when they finish with you," Epstein told the undercover FBI agents.

A "get" is a document that Jewish law requires a husband to present to his wife to be issued a divorce, the complaint says.

Without it, a woman is considered an "agunah," a chained woman bound to a man no matter how over their marriage might be. The implications of not having a get are serious in the Orthodox Jewish world. For Jews of other denominations, who interpret Jewish law differently, the requirement of a get is less stringent or dismissed altogether.

An Orthodox Jewish woman who does not receive a get, however, runs the risk of being shunned in her community and labeled an adulteress if she dares move on. And any future children she has are considered bastards permitted to marry only other bastards.

The complaint says that Epstein told the undercover FBI agents that his organization had kidnapped a husband every 12 to 18 months.

The complaint also says that Wolmark told the agents, "You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end."

"I can say that we are pleased the court accepted our bail proposal. I anticipate Rabbi Wolmark will be released shortly," said Marc Agnifilo, Wolmark's attorney.

"The rabbi is a highly respected Gittin scholar, and he steadfastly denies the allegations that he ordered violence," said Agnifilo.

Wolmark, Esptein and Potash's attorneys all told CNN that they are confident their clients will have their bail processed and be out on a house arrest by the end of this week.

CNN's calls to the other defendant's attorneys were not answered.

All 10 defendants pleaded not guilty last week. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Several men including two rabbis charged with plotting to arrange religious divorces through torture and kidnapping are to be released on bail.

A total of 10 defendants were charged last week in federal court in Trenton. Several were in court Wednesday for hearings and were released on $500,000 bail.

The men were arrested in an undercover operation that began in August when two FBI agents, one posing as a woman trying to get a divorce, contacted the rabbis. According to an FBI complaint, one rabbi spoke about forcing compliance through "tough guys" who use electric cattle prods and even place plastic bags over the heads of husbands.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has said the organization involved in the alleged plot had been involved in up to 20 kidnappings.

Bail was set today for another four of the men being held in a scheme to beat and torture men who refused to grant their wives religious divorces.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert in Trenton set bail at $1 million for Jay “Yaakov” Goldstein.

Bail for Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein and Simcha Bulmash was set at $500,000, charged as being enforcers or witnesses in the scheme.

Six others, including two Orthodox rabbis, had bail conditions set earlier in the week.

Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, a school administrator at a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., was released on $5 million bail secured by his home and other property, and placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring. Bond for Rabbi Mendel Epstein, 68, who lives in Lakewood, was set at $1 million, and was also ordered remain under house arrest, as was Ariel Potash, 40.

Binyamin Stimler, David Hellman, and Sholom Shucha were all to be released on $500,000 bail and also subject to house arrest with electronic monitoring.

The ten were arrested in an undercover operation that began in August when two FBI agents, one posing as a woman trying to get a divorce, contacted the rabbis.

Under Jewish law, a wife may not sue for divorce unless her husband agrees to provide her with a document known as a “get.” The court, known as a “beth din,” can order the husband to issue a get, however, in a bitter divorce dispute there is often no quick resolution and no guarantee he will accept the edict. Without a get, a woman can end up in limbo for years. She becomes known as an “agunah,” a woman chained to her marriage, unable to remarry.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, the men were willing to “convince” recalcitrant husbands to grant gets by any means possible. According to the FBI, the going rate was $10,000 to pay off a rabbinical court to approve a kidnapping and then another $50,000 to $60,000 to pay for the “tough guys” who would mete out beatings and other torture until a reluctant spouse finally acquiesced.

In one recorded meeting, Epstein spoke about kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands to in order to force a divorce, according the complaint. Epstein is well known in the Orthodox community as a divorce mediator.

Man at heart of FBI sting operation is well known in the torrid world of non-amicable Orthodox divorce.

Nearly any Orthodox woman who has struggled with the process of obtaining a halachic divorce from an uncooperative or vindictive husband in the New York area has heard the name Mendel Epstein.

The 68-year old rabbi, who appears to have homes in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Lakewood, N.J., has been closely involved in the world of agunot, or “chained women,” for some three decades, serving as a toen, the halachic equivalent of a lawyer.

In an interview with the Five Towns Jewish Times last summer, Rabbi Epstein said he was “disturbed by the number of women who find themselves in unbearably difficult situations” in divorce proceedings. He proposed a “bill of rights” for Jewish wives that includes, “A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get.”

But according to the FBI, which rounded up Rabbi Epstein and nine other men in an alleged interstate abduction ring last week and raided several homes and a Monsey yeshiva, his methods of persuading husbands to come around ran afoul of the law, if not halacha, and could land him and his associates in federal prison.

“I always knew he is a vigilante operating in system similar to the Wild West,” said Rivka Haut, a longtime activist on behalf of agunot who has known the rabbi for years, but said she had no direct knowledge of any abductions.

However, she said that women in such situations frequently asked her advice about pursuing such extreme measures. Haut, a co-founder of the advocacy group Agunah, Inc., says she has always counseled people to steer clear of violence or illegal schemes.

“Most of these women had to leave the marriage not because they want to go live with someone else, but because they married someone with serious problems,” Haut said. “Usually, they are desperate to be halachically released.”

According to the FBI, there are plenty of area women desperate enough to go through with illegal means. The complaint by New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, which was obtained by The Jewish Week, says Rabbi Epstein boasted to undercover agents that he carried out batei din, or rabbinical courts, to authorize the use of force, followed by abductions and coerced divorces on a regular basis “every year … year and a half” for an unspecified time period.

Fishman told The New York Times that two dozen husbands in divorce cases have been identified who may have been abducted from New York and taken to New Jersey to be roughed up by the defendants.

A message left at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home was not returned as of Tuesday afternoon. A number listed for Mendel Epstein in Lakewood appeared to be connected to a fax machine. Attempts to identify a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.

The Asbury Park Press, citing an unnamed source, reported on Oct. 11 that the investigation was directly related to a similar ongoing case involving an Orthodox couple from Lakewood, David and Judy Wax, who were charged in 2011 with abducting an Israeli man to force him to grant a get. That case is still pending. More arrests related to both cases will be forthcoming, the source told Asbury Park Press.

The FBI investigation originated in August and spanned until Oct. 7, when agents, including two posing as an agunah and her brother apprehended the defendants in a warehouse in Middlesex County, N.J. The fake scheme involved luring a supposed husband from New York City.

The complaint alleges that Rabbi Epstein solicited $10,000 for the rabbis presiding in the bet din and an additional $50,000 to $60,000 for “tough guys” to carry out the abduction and coercion. The complaint does not specify whether Rabbi Epstein himself was to receive any of the fees.

It doesn’t take more than an Internet search to link Rabbi Epstein to controversy. One man, Givon Zirkind, has launched an online crusade against the rabbi, posting an e-book and several YouTube videos that accuse him of various misdeeds against him. The rabbi’s name comes up on several blogs devoted to Orthodox wrongdoing, abuse and corruption.

The rabbi himself speaks candidly about his unorthodox methods in an interview in “Women Unchained,” a 2011 documentary by filmmakers Beverly Siegel and Leta Letik.

“I received a call from a young lady; she called and told me her son was kidnapped off a bus in Texas,” Rabbi Epstein says in a clip from “Women Unchained” posted by the Journal News of Rockland.

“She had heard that I have an ability to do things that are outside the normal parameters and normal channels and if I can help her find her son and if I can help her get a get. … I told her to first call the FBI. If the FBI comes out [and says] that they can’t help, I would then be a little bit interested to see what I can possibly do.”

The Oct. 7 complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton quotes Rabbi Epstein saying that “basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get.” At one point he mentioned electric cattle prods being used, and at another said his son used karate to persuade the kidnapped men.

In addition to Rabbi Epstein, the other rabbis arrested were Rabbi Martin Wolmark and Rabbi Jacob Goldstein. Rabbi Wolmark is rosh yeshiva of Shaarei Torah, a prominent High School in upstate Suffern. On Wednesday night, following the arrests, federal agents in six cars conducted a search for evidence at the yeshiva, as well as at Rabbi Epstein’s Brooklyn home, according to press reports.

Another individual was identified as Ariel Potash, who is cited in the complaint as the man who served as a shaliach, or emissary, to accept the get on behalf of the agent pretending to be an agunah.

Rabbi Goldstein is not the same person as the politically active Crown Heights chasidic leader by the same name who is chairman of Brooklyn’s Community Board 9.

In all, 10 people were arrested in the scheme, apprehended at the warehouse in New Jersey as they gathered to carry out the fake kidnap plot. The case is a federal matter because it involves alleged kidnapping and crossing state lines. Denied bail, the defendants remained in custody as of Tuesday afternoon, though a bail hearing was set for that day.

Rabbi Epstein is known to have served as a toen, or advocate/adviser to people appearing before rabbinical courts for the past 30 years. It is unclear if he has any other livelihood, though haut said he at one point held a synagogue pulpit and was the principal of a girls’ yeshiva.

A business, Mendel Epstein and Associates is listed at his Brooklyn address with him as managing partner.

The arrests, which garnered national news coverage, cast a spotlight on the ugly world of non-amicable Orthodox divorces in which men are empowered to prevent women from moving on with their lives.

She said that while she and Aranoff deal extensively with the rabbi and his activities in their book, to be published by MacFarland Publishing, they had not named him in early drafts, but will do so now.

Numerous organizations have been formed to advocate for such women and New York law has been amended to allow judges to consider a couple’s get status when dividing marital assets. Also, several area rabbis have been known to act as intermediaries in such cases, sometimes asking for payment for their services.

Goon squads that force recalcitrant husbands to issue the divorce have been mostly the stuff of Jewish urban legend, though a few cases, such as the 2011 Wax case, have gone to the legal system.

Haut, an Orthodox activist who is working on an upcoming book, “The Agunah Chronicles,” with Susan Aranoff, with whom she cofounded Agunah, Inc., said she was “surprised to see the headlines” about the FBI sting but “not surprised to see the content.

“Everybody knew very well about his activities, which were not always on behalf of women, but sometimes on behalf of husbands. He plays many roles: dayan [judge], toen and vigilante.”

Haut said that when she and Aranoff started out as advocates for agunot, Rabbi Epstein approached them “in a very charming way” to teach them about a “fascinating, complicated world” and referred many women to their organization.

Haut faults leading rabbis who shape modern halacha for failing to come up with a takana, or solution, to empower women to free themselves from bad, sometimes dangerous marriages, though many such modifications have been proposed by rabbis and agunah advocates. Proposals include a pre-nuptial agreement to provide a get, and a process of ex post facto annulment of a marriage agreement, if needed.

“Today’s rabbinate is not willing to use halachic solutions that certainly exist, leaving the field wide open for other rabbis to take advantage,” said Haut.

While denouncing any illegal methods, Haut said, “I blame the established rabbis for leaving a vacuum where people like that can step in.”

In addition to the legal issues in the case, there is also the question of whether those who may have paid tens of thousands for the rabbi's alleged services got what they paid for.

While it has been a common practice to pressure husbands into granting a get through actions within the community -- such as issuing a seruv, a kind of excommunication from religious life, --physically forced gittin create, at the very least, a halachic gray area.

"A get, in limited circumstances, after a reputable beis din has decided it is proper to pressure the recalcitrant husband, is valid even if given under duress," said Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America. "Usually, though, in our society, such duress consists of “shunning” sorts of pressures: not allowing the man to receive an aliya, and things like that.

"Physical duress, if it violates secular law, would not, to the best of my knowledge, be permissible."_______________________________________________________________________________Bad Rabbi: Tales of Extortion and Torture Depict a Divorce Broker's Brutal Grip on the Orthodox CommunityBy Albert SamahaThe Village Voice - December 4, 2013

This much Abraham Rubin knew: He was lying, blindfolded and handcuffed, in the back of a van. He could feel it winding through the streets. He figured at least three men were in there with him, plus the driver. There was the one who'd stepped out of nowhere and punched him in the face as he walked down 56th Street in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighborhood just a few minutes earlier. And two, maybe three others who'd bull-rushed him and threw him into the van.

"We only want you to be a Jew," one of them said in Yiddish.

The van stopped. Rubin heard a door open and the men getting out. "The rabbi is coming," one said. Then the sound of two or more men climbing in beside him.

One asked Rubin in English to repeat what he was about to say.

"On the fourth day of the week, the 10th day of the month of Heshvan in the year 5757 in the creation of the world . . ."

It was the beginning of an oath, and the 31-year-old Rubin, a rabbi himself, knew the words that would follow.

He told the man that he would not repeat them.

That's when the punching began. A relentless onslaught of fists, pummeling his torso and face. Then came the stun gun, jolting Rubin's entire body, over and over. Rubin felt the men pull down his pants, felt the device applied to his genitals. Again and again.

Eventually, the words flowed from him.

". . . willingly consent, being under no duress, to release, discharge, and divorce you to be on your own, you, my wife . . .

". . . so that you are permitted and have authority over yourself to go and marry any man you desire . . .

". . . This shall be for you from me a bill of dismissal, a letter of release, and a document of absolution, in accordance with the law of Moses and Israel."

Three hours after snatching him off the street, at around 10 o'clock on the night of October 23, 1996, his abductors left Rubin, still blindfolded and handcuffed, at the entrance to a cemetery.

Six days a week, 13th Avenue, Borough Park's central commercial thoroughfare, bustles. The sidewalks are crammed, a steady stream of patrons flowing in and out of the many shops. The storefronts, bearing signs written in Hebrew script, are diverse — from shoes to books to fruits and vegetables. Pedestrian attire, on the other hand, is unvarying. The men wear long black coats and wide-brimmed black felt hats. Many carry a book tucked under an arm. The women, who favor long black skirts and running shoes, push strollers.

On Saturdays, 13th Avenue feels like an empty movie set. Even the Duane Reade is closed. Residents of Borough Park honor the Sabbath. According to a 2011 study by the United Jewish Appeal–Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, more than three-fourths of the neighborhood's population of 170,000 is Jewish. The district's city councilman, David Greenfield, has called Borough Park "the Jewish capital of the United States."

The first local synagogue opened its doors in 1904, about the time Jewish immigrants began building a community in the neighborhood. Waves of new families from Europe arrived following each World War. Through the second half of the 20th century, as Americans of all faiths uprooted for the suburbs, Borough Park's population turned increasingly Orthodox, a trend fueled by an influx of immigrants who practiced the ultra-conservative Haredi strain of Judaism. The UJA–Federation study reported that 80 percent of Borough Park Jews classified themselves as Orthodox. Only 2 percent classified themselves as Reform, the religion's most popular liberal denomination in the U.S. Among the respondents, 94 percent answered that their "closest friends are mostly Jewish."

In Borough Park, faith is deeply embedded into day-to-day life. Present in buildings: Affixed to the right side of nearly every doorframe is a mezuzah. Present in travel: Inside the B110 bus, which offers special express service between Borough Park and Williamsburg but doesn't accept MetroCards, a sign reads, "When boarding a crowded bus with standing passengers in the front, women should board the back door after paying the driver in the front." Present in disagreements: Community members rarely take their legal disputes to civil court, choosing instead to settle them through a Jewish rabbinical court, a beth din. An insular legal system governed by Jewish law, the beth din perhaps best embodies the community's self-sufficiency.

For the court's proceedings, litigants typically hire an advocate, known as a to'ein, to argue the case.

In Borough Park, few to'anim were as prominent as Mendel Epstein.

Epstein, now 68, was known to many in the Orthodox Jewish community as a devoted feminist. Stout and bald, with a bushy beard and a steely demeanor, he specialized in divorces. Over three decades he built a reputation for effectively representing women. Says one local rabbi, "He presented himself as a champion for the underdog."

The women who came to Epstein often had a singular problem: Their husbands refused to grant them a get, a document without which an Orthodox Jewish marriage cannot be dissolved. The rule can be traced to the biblical Book of Deuteronomy, and its sway remains stifling: Without a get, a woman who remarries is considered adulterous. Any children fathered by her new husband are illegitimate under Orthodox law and prohibited from marrying within the faith.

The patriarchal nature of Orthodox marriages can lead to particularly contentious divorces. With custody and alimony at stake, a man may be tempted to use his biblically granted leverage in negotiations: No get until his terms are met. Though the practice is frowned upon, it is so pervasive that there's a word for a woman whose husband refuses to grant a get: an agunah, which translates from Hebrew as "chained woman."

"The get is often the last vestige of control that an abusive man has over his wife," says Rabbi Jeremy Stern, director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, a nonprofit advocacy group for chained women. "Agunot are among the most vulnerable members of the Jewish community."

The New York legislature tried to address the problem, passing a law in 1983 that forbids the state's courts to grant a divorce if the spouse who filed for it has not "taken all steps to remove all barriers to [the other's] remarriage." Another law, passed in 1992, allows courts to consider "barriers to marriage" when setting alimony and dividing property. "There are limitations to both get laws that make it so they do not resolve the agunot problem in New York state," says Stern, who encourages couples to sign a prenuptial agreement that legally requires a husband to pay his wife a fee for each day he holds out on a get. "The solution fundamentally lies in the hands of the rabbis and the Jewish community."

A beth din provides a forum for get mediation, but it does not guarantee that a woman will find a sympathetic ear. "In many cases the Jewish religious court is on the side of the husband," says Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies at Queens College. "Both sides don't have equal power. What can she do? She has no wiggle room. She's living in an environment and society where she has no control."

Epstein was an aggressive advocate, versed in scripture, a masterful orator before beth din judges. A fellow rabbi likens hashing out cases with Epstein to negotiating with a Wall Street lawyer. Says another, "He was the guy you went to to get the job done."

Larry Gordon, editor of the 5 Towns Jewish Times newspaper, recalls an evening outside a synagogue several months ago when he spoke with two men about Epstein. One man said he'd hired the rabbi to handle his daughter's divorce. The other man said Epstein had worked for his uncle's ex-wife and pursued a legal action that has barred the uncle from seeing his kids for the past 15 years. "The reason I hate him is the reason you use him for your daughter," Gordon remembers the second man saying.

Epstein publicly advocated for women's empowerment. In 1989 he published a book, AWoman's Guide to the Get Process, which advised wives on their religiously sanctioned options when seeking divorce. He wrote columns on the subject for the Jewish Press. Earlier this year, he codified his philosophy, unveiling "The Bill of Rights of a Jewish Wife" in the pages of the 5 Towns. One right states, "A wife must be treated with respect and not be abused. A woman in an abusive relationship has a right to seek a get." Another: "A husband is obligated to honor and respect his wife's parents." A third: "She is entitled to be supported by her husband."

He wrote it, the author explains in his introduction, "to clarify and strengthen the rights of the Jewish wife because I am disturbed by the number of women who find themselves in unbearably difficult situations."

The manifesto circulated through the Orthodox blogosphere, drawing praise and sparking long threads of debate. Epstein's position had long been accepted by those at the progressive end of the Orthodox Jewish spectrum. But Epstein himself is a Haredi Jew.

"It was a bold statement, because that's very rare to break ranks and step out of the mold that is the Orthodox Jewish community," says Gordon, who interviewed Epstein in August. "Sometimes the view of the elders is a bit archaic and needs some revision to stay in stride with the times. He presented himself as a man on the cutting edge who was willing to take that bold initiative."

More than one local rabbi says Epstein came across as a "knight in shining armor" to agunot in the most desperate situations.

"He says he is the undertaker of failed marriages," says Gordon. "The relationship dies; someone has to bury it."

Adds the newspaper editor: "It's dirty work. It's not pretty."

The women met with Amy Neustein in a synagogue after dark. Neustein's father, Rabbi Abraham Neustein, was a respected educator at the Jewish Center for Brighton Beach and he had a set of keys to the building. Neustein, then 27, had divorced her husband three years earlier, in 1983, and had moved back in with her parents so she could devote more time to the custody battle for her three-year-old daughter. A sociologist by trade, she helped out on her father's off-the-clock project.

Rabbi Neustein ran a sort of Underground Railroad for abused women in the community. It was a delicate matter. "If the women were caught challenging what their husbands had done to them," Amy Neustein says, "they would be subject to such terrible reproach in the Orthodox Jewish community that their chances of marrying again would be nil." So two or three times a week, Neustein's father drove the women to the Jewish Center's bais medrash, the prayer room where he taught, and they told her their stories: of domestic violence, of crumbling marriages, of get refusals.

One night in the fall of 1986, a woman named Deena talked with Neustein. Soft-spoken, she'd been sheltered all her life. "Naïve," Neustein remembers. Her story began the way many did: abusive husband won't grant get.

Deena went on to explain that her friends had referred her to a man who was known to help women in her situation. "He told her that the abuse denial was very much entrenched in the community; that the beth din favored men; that women were losing children and not getting divorces and there was nothing she could do; that she would remain a woman in chains for the rest of her life; that she wouldn't get a divorce in any other way than through him," Neustein recalls.

Soon after speaking with the man, Deena had second thoughts. He'd guaranteed he could persuade her husband to grant the get, but he was charging her thousands of dollars and was suspiciously secretive about his methods. Eventually Deena learned from others that the man was rumored to use violence to coerce gets out of stubborn husbands. So she told the man she'd changed her mind. She hinted that she might report him to authorities. In response, he told her she was about to make a terrible mistake. If she didn't accept his services, he said, she would lose her children, she would never marry again, "no one would ever want her, and the community would align with the husband," Neustein reports.

Neustein wasn't familiar with the man, a to'ein named Mendel Epstein. She advised Deena to "stay strong," "keep fighting," and they'd figure out a solution. The two women spoke a few more times over the next couple of months. And then Neustein never heard from Deena again. To this day she doesn't know where Deena went, but she heard the woman may have left the city.

In the years that followed, Epstein became a common thread between many of Neustein's nighttime meetings in the bais medrash. Most stories followed a similar arc: a desperate woman turns to Epstein, decides not to follow through with his plan, faces extortion.

There were some exceptions. In 1997, for example, Neustein met with a woman named Libby. She came from a poor family, Libby said, but her husband was a wealthy, well-known member of the Orthodox community. He was also abusive: When she was six months pregnant, Libby told Neustein, he beat her until she miscarried. Desperate, Libby turned to Mendel Epstein. The rabbi offered one solution: He'd have her husband give her $10,000 if she left the country and promised to keep quiet.

Neustein advised her to reject the deal, and to bring the spousal abuse to light.

A few days later, Libby phoned Neustein from the airport and apologized. She had a one-way ticket to Israel. "I'm giving in," she said.

Over a decade and a half, Neustein estimates, two dozen women came to her in fear of Epstein.

Meanwhile, in a one-room office in Crown Heights, a family therapist named Monty Weinstein was hearing stories, too. Weinstein founded Father's Rights Metro, a nonprofit group that assisted men in custody disputes. Weinstein remembers the first time he heard Epstein's name: In the mid-1980s, an Orthodox Jew approached him with a farfetched tale about how he'd been jumped by thugs and beaten until he agreed to recite the get oath.

"I was skeptical," Weinstein says. "In fact, I didn't believe it. I knew this guy must be a kook."

Several weeks later, though, another man came in with the same story. Then another. Some told of beatings, others of threatening phone calls: Grant the get or you'll be accused of child abuse; grant the get or you'll never see your kids again; grant the get, or else. By the time Weinstein shuttered the nonprofit in 1995, he says, he'd encountered more than a dozen men who'd been assaulted or intimidated over a get.

Such acts of physical coercion go back to ancient times, when a Jewish man could legally be flogged until he relented. In the early 20th century in certain parts of Europe, Queens College professor Heilman says, a woman's father might hire neighborhood toughs to rough up a son-in-law who refused to grant a get.

But refusals persist, and so do beatings. If anything, an increasingly mobile society has amplified the temptation to resort to violence. In the past, a community might shun a recalcitrant husband. Nowadays the man can simply relocate. "It's a modern-day problem because now men can start over," says Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann, director of Beth Din of America, a Manhattan-based rabbinical court that handles more cases than any beth din outside of Israel. "Before mobilization, he's stuck in his community, where there's a stigma."

Certain forms of coercion are unanimously accepted in divorce disputes. The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot uses a variety of social and economic pressures to persuade a man to grant a get. Jeremy Stern says he'll stage protests outside a recalcitrant husband's home or workplace and have lawyers look into civil litigation. He asks the man's synagogue to bar him from entry. In some instances, he has asked a husband's employer to fire him. If the man owns a business, he calls for a boycott.

Sometimes the measures work. Stern recalls one man who gave the get after 20 weeks of protest outside his house. Another relented as he faced a third stint in jail for contempt of court. But of the 50 cases Stern sees each year, about half are rolled over from the year prior. Some have dragged on for six, seven, 11 years. (A husband's stubbornness should not be underestimated. In Israel, where beth din rulings are legally binding, a husband can be incarcerated for refusing to grant a get. One such man, Yehia Abraham, spent 32 years in prison rather than agree to the divorce. Abraham died behind bars in 1994.)

"You can coerce," says Heilman. "The question is: What coercion can you use?"

In the 12th century, in his Jewish law codex Mishneh Torah, the scholar Maimonides described the justification for physical coercion: "If the law mandates that a person grant his wife a divorce, and he refuses, a Jewish court, in any time or place, may beat him until he says, 'I am willing' and writes the writ of divorce. . . . It is only that his evil inclination has overpowered him. So if he is beaten so that his evil inclination is weakened, and he says, 'I am willing,' he has willingly divorced."

Most rabbis these days believe it's unacceptable to beat a husband in pursuit of a get. Weissmann and Stern say a get procedure isn't legitimate under Jewish law if it violates secular penal codes.

"On one side, you are allowed to coerce a recalcitrant husband who refuses to give a get," Heilman explains. "On the other side, you are required to abide by the law of the land, and assault is not part of the law."

Amy Neustein often met with law enforcement officials to provide background on investigations that involved the Orthodox community. She first dropped Epstein's name in December 1986, when an investigator from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York visited her house to discuss possible financial fraud among rabbis. Though she had only the anecdotal stories she'd heard from troubled women, she suspected Epstein was a "rogue" running an extortion racket. (The Voice contacted spokesmen at the U.S. Attorney's Offices for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, all of whom declined to confirm or deny whether their agencies have any files on Mendel Epstein.)

Monty Weinstein, too, voiced his concerns. Through the late 1980s and early '90s, he says, he described what he had heard about Epstein in letters to the Kings County District Attorney's Office and to various Brooklyn judges. In 1991, he staged a protest outside Epstein's Midwood home. He recalls that about 25 people showed up, some holding "Stop Mendel Epstein" signs.

Most say that by the mid-'90s, Epstein's kidnapping ring had become an open secret. "The whole community knew this," says Stern. "If someone wanted someone beaten up, Epstein would be the guy."

After years of operating with seeming impunity, Epstein himself wasn't exactly secretive about his unconventional methods. In an interview for the 2011 documentary Women Unchained, the rabbi told of a desperate wife who came to him after her husband took off with their child. "She heard I have an ability to do things outside the normal parameters, outside normal channels," he said.

By the logic Epstein presented, he was a righteous vigilante, defending helpless women who had nowhere else to turn.

"He took advantage of their vulnerability," says Stern, adding that Epstein's motivation was not about advancing women's rights, but about enlarging his own bank account. "A gun for hire," he says.

The marriage of Abraham Rubin and Chaya Mund didn't last long, but the couple's divorce was protracted and messy. They wed in 1986; in 1990, Mund moved to Montreal with their two children, according to court documents. Two years later, a civil court granted her a divorce. Rubin later claimed in court that he gave Mund a list of 30 rabbis he was willing to work with for the get hearing and she countered with her own list. (The Voice was unable to locate Mund to seek comment for this story.)

"That is one of the biggest fault lines in any acrimonious Jewish divorce case," says Shlomo Weissmann, speaking generally. "Some Jewish courts might have a reputation for being biased in favor of the men. Some might have a reputation for being biased in favor of the women. So the man and woman might disagree in terms of where to go."

Jewish law states that when the parties can't agree on a court, each side picks a rabbi, those two select a third, and the three form an ad hoc beth din. Rubin claimed Mund wouldn't agree to this process, and that he'd refused to grant the get until they could present their case to a beth din he deemed impartial. For four years, the stalemate persisted.

In April 1996, Rubin told a friend, Rabbi Elya Amsel, that a group of rabbis was convening a beth din to mediate his divorce proceedings. Mund had selected the rabbis and Rubin assumed the men would be biased. He refused to attend. According to an affidavit Amsel later filed in court, Amsel offered to go in Rubin's stead.

The beth din was held at the Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Ditmas Park. Among the several men present, according to Amsel, were Rabbi Israel Belsky, who taught a class at the yeshiva; Rabbi Martin Wolmark, a respected educator from upstate; and Mendel Epstein.

Belsky told Amsel that Rubin had already missed a hearing in December. Because Rubin again failed to show up, Amsel recalled Belsky saying, he'd be tried in absentia and the judges would authorize the use of force to secure a get. "We'll physically give him beatings," Belsky said in Yiddish, according to Amsel.

The October 1996 assault left Rubin bruised and bloodied. A passing motorist saw him and took him to the police station, where officers removed his handcuffs and transported him to a hospital. As he recuperated, Rubin set out to compile evidence against the men he suspected were behind the attack.

He had an associate make phone calls to some of the men involved, posing as a rabbi claiming that Rubin had contacted him to try to have the get reversed. The caller made it clear that he had no qualms with the kidnapping, and that he was simply hoping to confirm that the get was valid. Rubin's friend Barry Markowitz later filed an affidavit stating that he set up a voice-recording system and listened in on the calls.

On November 16 and December 10, 1996, a "Rabbi Wieder" made calls to Belsky. In a transcript of the conversations, translated from Yiddish to English and later filed in court, Belsky describes what he knew about Rubin: "We heard this person is such a rotten animal that there is no equal on this earth." Belsky goes on to explain that he and other rabbis held a tribunal and "the verdict was that there should be compulsion." He stresses that he was not present at the beating but says, "I was in agreement, after many weeks and weeks of consideration and discussing the compulsion itself."

"If he deserves the beatings, then he deserves it," the man masquerading as Wieder responds. "You felt that he deserves it, then good."

"Yes, it's very hard on my heart," Belsky replies. "I don't keep a record, but it was the first time which I have agreed to such a thing." (Belsky, who denied in court having participated in the attack, did not respond to interview requests from the Voice. Neither did his lawyer, Robert Rimberg.)

On December 28, 1996, and January 1, 1997, "Rabbi Rosen" phoned Yaakov Goldstein, the scribe tasked with transcribing Rubin's get. According to the transcript, Rosen asks whether Rubin was "clear of mind the whole time"; otherwise the get would be invalid. Goldstein replies in the affirmative. In response to a series of questions about the abduction, Goldstein is more than forthcoming.

"You have to watch the man, what his habits are, where he goes, how and where you can grab him," Goldstein offers. "If you have a plan, then you call the people who do the kidnapping."

Goldstein volunteers that Wolmark was in charge of the get proceedings, and that the physical abuse was handled by "two people from Epstein — that's his work." He knew Epstein from previous get-related kidnapping attempts, both of them "unsuccessful," Goldstein says. There was a man in Baltimore 10 years back, and a man upstate in Monsey "several months ago."

By Goldstein's reckoning, the Rubin get went smoothly. He tells Rosen that he waited outside the van while Wolmark and two others secured the oath.

Rosen asks how the coercion worked.

"There is such a thing called a stun gun," Goldstein explains. "And they put such a tape or something so that it shouldn't leave a mark on the surface. They administer electric shocks and it's not a dangerous thing. It's not a thing that can damage or kill."

But from outside the van, Goldstein says, he knew when the men were employing the stun gun. "It makes a noise," he says. "I heard him screaming."

Goldstein goes on to tell Rosen that after releasing Rubin, he and his cohorts met with Chaya Mund at the home of a relative of Wolmark in Flatbush. With the get in hand, they performed a ceremony to make the divorce official.

"We . . . went into someone's basement and we said, 'Don't ever talk to anyone about this,'" Goldstein says. "I don't even know whether [Wolmark's family members] knew what was going on in there."

On January 4, 1997, Rubin went to the home of a friend, Rabbi Shiah Director, with a box of cassette tapes. As Director would later explain in a statement filed in court, Rubin told him that when he'd given copies to the police department, an officer had advised that he not keep the originals at his own home. Director agreed to store them in his study.

Six days later, a fire broke out in Director's house. No one was home at the time, and the tapes were not damaged.

When Rubin filed a civil suit seeking to hold Belsky, Epstein, Wolmark, and others responsible for his kidnapping, court documents show that he did not submit any statements from witnesses on his behalf. The defendants filed a motion denying the accusations. "Mr. Rubin cannot state with any personal knowledge or certainty" who was present during his attack, defense attorney Robert Rimberg contended. "Mr. Rubin was blindfolded." After Rubin countered with a motion simply restating the charges in the complaint, a Kings County Supreme Court judge dismissed the case.

Rubin appealed and this time persuaded five community members to file affidavits or amicus briefs.

"It was public knowledge since about 1990, when it came to my personal attention, that Martin Wolmark together with Mendel Epstein engage underworld thugs to assist them in executing coerced gets," wrote Rabbi Tzvi Dov Abraman.

Rabbi Abraham Rapaport wrote that Wolmark "wants to make his name in the Jewish community, and was under the erroneous impression that lynching recalcitrant husbands would establish him as a leading rabbi."

Amsel stated in a sworn affidavit that the fire at Director's house had made him afraid to testify. (The cause of the blaze remained a mystery, Director told the court.) Amsel asserted he'd heard that potential witnesses were receiving threatening phone calls. "I therefore decided that it was not worth it for me to compromise my life and safety," he wrote.

Markowitz felt similar fears. "It was my intention to testify but subsequently I refused to cooperate with Rabbi Rubin, particularly after hearing Yaakov Goldstein reveal how ordinary and routine it is for him and his goons to abduct and torture people with stun guns," he wrote. (Director and Rapaport have since died. Calls to phone numbers listed under Abraman's and Markowitz's names went unanswered.)

On the grounds that the appeal targeted the rabbis accused of ordering the beatings, not the men who executed the assault, the Kings County Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2000. "No triable issues of fact exist," Judge William Garry ruled.

The criminal case seemed more promising. In early 1998, Rubin took his story public, agreeing to an interview with Newsday's Dan Morrison.

"While no one has ever been prosecuted for a get-related attack in New York City, that may soon change," Morrison wrote. Detective Robert Rodenburg of the NYPD's 66th Precinct said the police work had gone well. "The investigators spent an awful lot of time doing this case and it was really nitpicked to do it right," he told Morrison. "It was done as well as any homicide case could be done. Just like not every homicide case gets solved, will this case get solved? That's up to the D.A.'s Office."

Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione filed an affidavit in Rubin's civil case, stating, "I have been investigating the case involving Abraham Rubin and his claims concerning criminal activity for several months. . . . I have asked for, and received from Abraham Rubin a number of documents, tape recordings, and other information concerning his allegations. . . . Mr. Rubin has been cooperating with my office."

But Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes dropped the case.

In response to questions from the Voice, Hynes's office declined to comment. Instead, spokeswoman Mia Goldberg emailed a short statement: "One person made allegations against Rabbi Epstein. Because that person was unable to identify any of his assailants, we were unable to bring a case against him."

Hynes, who has held his seat since 1990, failed to win a seventh term in November's election. In recent years he has faced accusations that he went easy on Orthodox Jewish leaders accused of child sexual abuse in order to fortify his political ties with the community.

That wouldn't have come as a shock to Amsel. In July 1997, eight months after Rubin's kidnapping, he wrote a letter to a detective in the 66th Precinct describing what he knew about the crime. "It is not expected that these criminals will ever be brought to justice, since the D.A.'s office is known to be a political movement," he wrote.

In their statements to the court, Amsel, Director, and Markowitz suggested that the criminal investigation didn't appear to worry Epstein. In fact, they alleged, he'd orchestrated two more kidnappings: Tobias Horowitz in August 1997 and Zalmen Livshitz in March 1998. (The Voice was unable to locate either man.)

On August 14, 2013, Mendel Epstein met with a woman at his house in Ocean County, New Jersey. She told him she was in need of his services.

She'd contacted Epstein through Wolmark, who'd advised her that "there's another way" to pull a get from a recalcitrant husband: "You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end. . . . Getting a guy like Mendel Epstein who's a hired hand," he said, according to a federal indictment filed in October. Wolmark set up a conference call with Epstein, and the August 14 meeting was scheduled. The woman said she'd bring along her brother.

"This is an expensive thing to do," Epstein said to the two visitors. "Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get."

The woman's brother asked about Epstein's effectiveness.

"Wait a minute here," Epstein said. "I guarantee you that if you're in the van, you'd give a get to your wife. You probably love your wife, but you'd give a get when they finish with you.

"Hopefully, there won't even be a mark on him," he added.

"You can leave a mark." The brother chuckled.

"No, no, no, no," said Epstein. "We prefer not to leave a mark. Because then when you do, they do go to the police, the police look at the guy. . . . And basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him, then, 'Is there some Jewish crazy affair here?' They don't get involved."

Epstein told the woman that he orchestrated a kidnapping about once a year. He explained that it would cost $10,000 to pay for the rabbis to approve the coercion at a beth din, plus $60,000 to cover the "tough guys."

"We take an electric cattle prod," Epstein said. "If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put it in certain parts of the body and in one minute the guy will know."

On October 9, eight men, including Yaakov Goldstein, piled into two minivans and gathered at a warehouse on a secluded road in Middlesex County, New Jersey. They wore "ski masks, Halloween masks, or bandanas," according to the indictment. They brought with them the traditional tools for a get ceremony: feather quills, ink bottles, a writing board. They also had rope, plastic bags, a screwdriver, and surgical blades.

As they waited for the woman's brother to bring the husband, a team of federal agents burst in and arrested the would-be kidnappers. Shortly afterward officers arrested Epstein and Wolmark.

The woman and her brother were undercover FBI agents. They had worn wires that recorded the conversations.

The New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office had been investigating Epstein since October 2010, when a group of men allegedly attacked a man named Yisrael Bryskman in Lakewood, according to spokeswoman Rebekah Carmichael. Prosecutors charged Rabbi David Wax and his wife, Judy, with the kidnapping. Bryskman said the assault took place at Wax's home. (The Waxes have yet to enter a plea. Mitchell Ansell, their attorney, says there are "still discussions ongoing" between the sides.)

At Epstein's bail hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko, the lead prosecutor for the case, cited several victims he knew of: Rubin, Bryskman, a New Jersey man in 2006, a Brooklyn man in 2011, a Pennsylvania man in 2012. At the time of the sting, he "had reason to believe" there were at least 20 other victims. The number rose quickly once Epstein's arrest made headlines, he added. "My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims," Gribko told the court.

Epstein's wife and four daughters put up five properties worth a combined $4 million as bond. A judge ordered that the 68-year-old rabbi wear an electronic monitor and leave his house only for meetings with his attorney, medical appointments, and religious worship. (Neither Susan Necheles, Epstein's attorney, nor Robert Rimberg, who is representing Wolmark, responded to the Voice's interview requests for this story.)

While Epstein surely has allies in his community, publicly he has become a pariah. The Rabbinical Alliance of America was one of Epstein's preferred beth dins. Its director, Rabbi Hershel Kurzrock, was friendly with Epstein. Kurzrock's wife tells the Voice that he's "been getting a lot of calls" from the press and that he won't comment on Epstein. Several beth din rabbis who didn't know Epstein declined to discuss him on the record, saying they don't want their names associated with his in any fashion.

Other community members and victims requested anonymity out of fear.

"Zachary" remains terrified of Epstein. In 1991, his wife sought a divorce and hired Epstein as her to'ein. He's looked over his shoulder ever since.

"I've lived like a fugitive for 20 years," he says.

Zachary refused to grant a get until they finished negotiating custody for their two children and alimony. He claims she wanted full custody and the get was the only chip with which he might sway her. Even then, the mediation couldn't move forward because they disagreed on a beth din and Zachary would not accept an ad hoc hearing. In January 1995, two weeks after Epstein entered the picture, Zachary's wife accused him of child abuse and a family court judge issued an order of protection barring him from his home. (The order expired after one year.)

Zachary began hearing stories about Epstein's ways of pulling a get out of a man. "Watch yourself," friends told him. Certain "the goon squad" was after him, he moved to New Jersey to stay under the radar. He reveals his address to no one, not even the city he lives in. His phone number is unlisted. He wiped the Internet clean of nearly every piece of information that may point to his location. He believes that men working for Epstein may still be looking for him.

"I was elusive," he says. "I was lucky."

He hasn't signed the get.

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3 comments:

A Shaarei Torah graduate
said...

Please do not damage the good name of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah, founded by Rabbi Berel Wein, shlit"a, who has done so much good for the Jewish people.

Wolmark, who took over the yeshiva, is responsible for this reprehensible behavior. The fact that they raided the yeshiva to get at his files is irrelevant. They also raided his home, but no one is publicizing the name of the street.

Please identify this by the names of the perpetrators not the name of the institution that produced (prior to Wolmark) many great leaders of klal Yisroel. Thank you.

It's about time they got his Monster Mr. Mendel Epstein YS"V. This is indeed Great News!!! May we ALL share in this Simcha together. Mazel Tov! On Mendel Epstein, is said "Shem Reshoim Yirkav Bekorov". May he rot in Hell. Now Moshiach can already come. Hey don't forget to hang them on a tree on Ocean Parkway.

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Survivors ARE Heroes!

The Awareness Center believes ALL survivors of sex crimes should be given yellow ribbons to wear proudly.

Survivors of sexual violence (as adults and/or as a child) are just as deserving of a yellow ribbon as the men and women of our armed forces, who have been held captive as hostages or prisoners of war.

Survivors of sexual violence have been forced to learn how to survive, being held captive not by foreigners, but mostly by their own family members, teachers, camp counselors, coaches babysitters, rabbis, cantors or other trusted authority figures.

For these reasons ALL survivors of sexual violence should be seen as heroes!